Abbie Cornish

"The hardest part is getting your clothes off at first in front of the people who haven't seen you naked before. The first time you get nude in front of someone, it's hard, and then it's, 'Well, you've seen everything now. It's OK; we can shoot the rest of the day.'" - Abbie Cornish

Long considered one of Hollywood’s next great indie darlings thanks to her roles in films like Somersault, Candy, Stop-Loss, and Bright Star, Aussie actress Abbie Cornish’s latest batch of films have her headed in an entirely different direction. As Bradley Cooper’s love interest in the Limitless, which topped the box office the weekend of its release, Cornish proved that she has what it takes to share the screen with a real movie star. Whether or not she can become one will depend heavily on the success of Zack Snyder’s effects-laden Sucker Punch, her first real foray into big-budget movie-making.

SEX APPEAL

Abbie Cornish’s Bright Star director Jane Campion once said there’s a kind of “looseness, freedom and vivacity” to Cornish that’s just impossible to ignore. We agree. So does Ryan Phillippe, who allegedly ended his marriage to Reese Witherspoon to pursue the striking Australian actress. Despite the scrutiny over their relationship, the pair eventually moved in together. But Phillippe -- playing the part of a leopard unwilling to change his spots -- reportedly cheated on Cornish, prompting her to end the relationship. So Abbie Cornish is now single, and to all her potential suitors we say this: Get her while she’s still on the B-list.

SUCCESS

Before Abbie Cornish made the move to Hollywood, she had become one of the top actresses in her native Australia thanks to a breakthrough turn in Somersault, which earned her the covetedAustralian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. But like her fellow countrywomen Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts, Cornish had her sights set on Hollywood. After various success on the festival circuit -- namely her award-winning performance as Fanny Brawne in Jane Campion’s Bright Star -- Cornish was primed for movie stardom, especially after Vanity Fair put her on the cover of their harbinger-of-big-things Hollywood Issue. So far, Cornish hasn’t disappointed, with a leading role in the box-office smash Limitless and upcoming roles in Zack Snyder’s 300-for-girls epic Sucker Punch and the Madonna-directed W.E.

Abbie Cornish Biography

By all accounts, Abbie Cornish is as grounded a celebrity as you’re likely to meet. The second of five children, Cornish grew up on her father's 70-hectare farm, where she and her siblings would explore their surroundings with the childlike curiosity that often produces artists. When Cornish was 13, she began modeling and landed her first job on ABC’s Children’s Hospital after her agency sent her to an audition. Cornish was hooked. She left home at age 16 -- the same year her parents split -- and set to live the life of a struggling artist in Newcastle. There, she attended high school with the goal of becoming a veterinarian while taking acting gigs on the side on shows like Wildside and Outriders.

Abbie Cornish Becomes a Movie Star in Australia

Abbie Cornish’s first film role wasn’t exactly a memorable one. In The Monkey’s Mask, the young actress played a girl who was abducted in the film’s first act and found dead later. But her second feature, the Australian indie Somersault, would change Cornish’s life forever. After playing at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, Somersault, which also starred the then-unknown Sam Worthington, swept the Australian Film Institute Awards, winning 13 in total, including Best Actress for Cornish. Suddenly, the charismatic blonde was the most in-demand actress in her country, appearing in the films Everything Goes and Candy, alongside Heath Ledger, for which she earned her second Australian Film Institute Award nomination.

Abbie Cornish Takes Her Talents Stateside

Every year, a new set of young, foreign ingenues try to achieve crossover success in Hollywood, but only the cream of the crop are embraced by North American audiences. Cornish’s first three attempts at mainstream success were either overshadowed by bigger stars or weakened by muddled scripts. In Ridley Scott’s A Good Year, she played second fiddle to Russell Crowe. The same goes for her performance in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, a film dominated by the majestic Cate Blanchett. Kimberly Peirce’s Iraq-War drama Stop-Loss could have been the breakthrough Cornish was looking for, but a weak script and an even weaker box-office performance nixed that hope. It wasn’t until Abbie Cornish starred as Fanny Brawne in Jane Campion’s acclaimed film Bright Star that North American audiences finally saw Cornish’s true movie-star potential.

Abbie Cornish On The Cusp of Movie Stardom

With Nicole Kidman approaching the twilight of her career, Hollywood is in need of another Australian beauty to assume her crown. They may have to look no further than Abbie Cornish, whose role as Bradley Cooper’s love interest in the film Limitless is proof that she has what it takes to be a movie star. Her next film will see her team up again with 300 director Zack Snyder (Cornish provided her voice in his animated film Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole) in Sucker Punch, one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year (and a fan boy’s wet dream). After Cornish is done kicking ass alongside Emily Browning and Vanessa Hudgens, she’ll take direction from the Material Girl herself in the film W.E.